Cynosure
by Incognito Temptation
Summary: A collection of loosely related drabbles concerning the relationship shared by our favorite trio. [Fuugen and Fuu x Jin, because Fuu loves her boys.]
1. Ocean

**Cynosure:**  
_Serving for guidance or direction._**  
**

* * *

Sometimes, when a curtain of dark covers the usual sunny sky, and when Mugen and Jin stay up arguing softly—never too loud, so as not to disturb her, but always loud enough that she can make out their words—sometimes, Fuu listens. 

She used to ignore them in favor of stargazing, staring up at the vast and silky night clouds, barely visible, and seeing brilliant white stars there; a polka dot canvas. In her younger days, she fancied the idea of plucking one of the little circles from its place, but now she knows that this is not possible, and that if it was, she would forgo the act anyway in fear of disrupting the pattern.

For a few nights every week, Fuu lies awake and thinks about how very much she and Mugen and Jin are like the sky. Their days together are never the same, not with Mugen stirring up trouble, and yet in that exact sense every day is the same. Nothing can change them, because they are intangible and unreachable like the stars, out of grasp to everybody else.

Mugen bothers a lot of people. He breaks things that Fuu has to pay for. He drinks a lot and never pays, telling the waitress (a different one each time) to "put it on his tab". He is the reason Fuu gets kidnapped so often, and yet, he always manages to rescue her. Mugen is Mugen, loud and wildly boisterous and _dangerous_, and so irresistible it irks her.

Jin likes to keep a low profile. He kills only those who stand in his way, and steals only when he is truly hungry. He keeps Mugen and Fuu on a consistent path, telling them when to turn and when to pretend and when to lie. They follow him blindly, because Jin is, after all, the only way to get to where they're going. Jin is Jin, cool like winter snow at certain times, and burning people like a controlled inferno at other times.

Fuu likes to think that she is the balance between the two. She knows that she causes nearly as many problems as Mugen, what with her gambling addiction and her tendency to piss all the wrong people off. She also knows that Mugen and Jin will always stand there, waiting for her, ready to pull her out of any hell she can concoct. She is like the icing on a cake, sweet and sticky and deliciously pure, like a newborn that only smiles. Fuu is Fuu, soft and tender but rough and assertive…and always the referee, shouting, "stop".

So sometimes she listens, because she is the motherly figure and like any good mother she worries for her boys.

They speak of women from the brothel, and of escape routes, and of fat old men who smoke and sic assassins on them. They speak of how unbearably vague any clues about the sunflower samurai are, and of how they would enjoy nothing more than killing eachother.

Once, and only once, they spoke of Fuu.

She had been on the verge of drifting to sleep, imagining a cool wave of water washing over her, calming and cleansing. She thought of Jin because it was a soothing feeling, but she also thought of Mugen, because water was his birthright, and water was what he was raised on. No land.

She had been losing consciousness, just about to forget her sudden bout of insomnia and let dreams claim her. She had a feeling she would dream of red and blue, of water over fire.

But she did not dream that night, because she did not sleep that night.

Fuu lay awake listening to them whisper careful words about her, and feeling their reproachful gazes on her stilled body. It was odd that either of them should act so timidly even when they thought she slept. It was _odd_, because Jin's movements were fluid in battle, practiced; and because Mugen never planned anything, never regretted anything.

Mugen said that perhaps she was not so flat-chested, and very quietly he boasted how well she could handle a drink. She was flattered and annoyed, but not angry. She appreciated the truth, wholly and fully.

Jin said that perhaps even after they found the samurai who smelled of sunflowers, perhaps he would stay with Fuu. She might need him again, he told Mugen. It was pleasing to think that he had considered her safety, and a warmth surged through her veins upon the realization that maybe he did not find her so troublesome…maybe he did not mind.

She had tried hard not to move that night, not to squirm in her cot. She'd wanted more, more of their beautiful melancholy together, voices soft and for once, not jagged or uncouth.

They only managed to hold her interest for so long, because she woke up the next morning remembering seeing stars before slumber, and hearing the echo of their last words in her ears, hearing expired speech when she should hear them packing camp up.

The fire had burned out during the night, and their cots were being rolled for carry.

They ate that day, Mugen caused a scene in town that day, and she and Jin restored a peaceful balance that day.

In times like these, when Fuu wakes to find that there never was a proper camp, when Fuu does not see a burned out fire—when she does not see her boys stuffing things into bags and hoisting them onto their backs—in times like these, Fuu still hears them.

They are ghosts lingering behind glass in her mind, glass that she thinks will shatter at any time. Their words linger and linger, taunting her until their individual voices run together and drown out everything else, and until there _is _nothing else.

Sometimes, when a curtain of dark covers the usual sunny sky, and when the crickets chirp but she does not hear them…sometimes Fuu cries because things are not as they once were, and because the 'peaceful balance' she worked so hard to maintain had finally been broken.

Sometimes she wishes the glass in her mind would break, and she hopes against all odds that a piece of the imaginary glass will lodge itself into the part of her brain that controls memories, destroying them forever.

But then she remembers that the ocean is somewhere nearby, and she thinks about how it will be stained red when the sun rises—red and blue, Mugen and Jin.

She pinpoints it and sits at the water's edge, listening to the rush of waves twisting upwards and falling and scattering; dancing like Mugen and Jin did with swords, ruthlessly. She _listens _to the waves, truly listens to them, and realizes that though her boys are so very far away, they are closer to her now than they have been in a long, long while.

(Fuu doesn't stray far from the ocean. Not anymore.)

* * *

**_Fin._**


	2. River

**Cynosure**  
_part two_

* * *

Way down the road (and she means _waaaay_ down the road, well out of the red light district where she is staying), way down the road the remains of her old teahouse have been swept away. 

She likes to think that the wind carried the ashes back to Mugen and Jin, the starting points. She imagines their faces smudged black, and the sweet, rhythmic sound of laughter escapes her lips.

The days of autumn are coming to a slow, and the nights are getting darker sooner. In a little while, the first snow of the new season will cover the spot where the teahouse was rooted so very long ago. In a little while, evidence from Fuu's year of growing pains will be completely lost.

It hurts, to know that she is the only one who will remember such a time. None of the customers were regulars, and she'd heard that the old man and woman who owned the teahouse were stricken by illness. She heard that the reaper himself had come marching to the couple's door in the middle of the night.

Vaguely, she feels guilty for not crying on their behalf.

…But Fuu is different now; she is not a child with a tendency for eating too much and speaking when she is not asked to. Now, Fuu is tall and poised, and her cheeks are rosy like that of a caring mother.

On a few occasions, when asked what her profession was, she has listed her occupation as mother. She is not _truly_ a mother in the sense that she has never given birth, but Mugen and Jin, for a time, were the equivalent of adopted sons, or perhaps even brothers.

Family, Fuu decides, is only temporary. After all, she had thought of the old man and woman as a grandfather and a loving grandma, and they are gone now, having slipped away like water over rocks.

Every now and then when Fuu leaves the red light district (where she is withering away like the sickly October trees), every now and then Fuu watches the wind scatter a few pieces of soot, and she follows the debris to the river's edge where the wind always halts, and Fuu watches the stained, black waves crash up and down, as if breathing.

Fuu watches the black water, knowing that someday it will drown her.

(…Because Mugen and Jin have already consumed her life once, and she doesn't doubt, even for a moment, that they will do so again.)

Fuu inhales deeply, and always she is able to smell the effects of smoke.

(But the thing is, she likes the scent of Mugen and Jin better.)

* * *

_**Fin.**_


	3. Unite

**Cynosure,**  
_part three_

* * *

  
They're ahead of her, moving quickly, having a one-sided argument. The sun is blinding, the horizon bleeding red and orange together – loud colors, too loud, too much like Mugen's raised voice and the headache that always follows.

Jin's features are tight as he takes a step in front of Mugen only to have the man match his pace. A flicker of amusement passes through his dark irises, but Fuu cannot see it. In a way, Fuu has always been blind. (And both of her boys know it.)

She is blind in the way that she clings to them, fearless with them at her sides, confident that they will always be there to aide her even though they've left her before.

She is blind in the way that she doesn't see Jin's chest rising unevenly at night while she toys with his smooth, long hair. Jin lies still with his breathing measured, giving the illusion that he is actually resting, and Fuu runs her hands through the thin black strands that stream from his scalp. (Like the river she thought would drown her.)

She is blind in the way that she doesn't see Mugen's insults for what they are. Somewhere, in the _farthest _depths of her subconscious, she has always known that he points out her flaws so that she can fix them...or at the very least, learn to hide them better. His words are never there as just put-downs, even if that's what he wants her to believe.

Fuu is blind in the way that she continues to trail along behind them – never quite in the same step, their three names never whispered in the same breath.

Fuu envies the two of them in many ways, and the extent of her bitterness hasn't ever ceased to surprise her. Once, she had wished them both crippled, and the only reason she could think of to justify herself was that they were taunting her intentionally with their attacks, with the iridescent flashes of metal in the night, swords unsheathed. She convinces herself that they know what they're doing, because it usually seems they do.

But _do_ they know what they are doing to her? Do they know the hole they are digging her into?

And the larger question: does Fuu know that she's the one digging the hole?

Fuu clenches her fists and her pace grows faster, but Mugen and Jin still run in front of her, close enough she can see them and yet just out of reach.

They are reunited, and, just for a moment, when she sees the wind lifting through Mugen's hair and the red-tinted sun shining through Jin's, just for a moment, Fuu _sees_.

Fuu sees that they were never truly united to begin with.

(As the wind dies down, a promise is forgotten.)

And then, then, Jin turns around with questioning eyes, and she loses her train of thought, smiling and hurrying to his side.

They are united now.

* * *

**_Fin._**


End file.
